dFormer Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid encouraged Massachusetts senator and progressive firebrand Elizabeth Warren to run for president, according to a new report from New York Times Magazine.

The news, pointed out by Vox, came out as part of a larger story by Charles Homans about the future of the Democratic Party. Homans wrote:

Reid brought Warren onto the Democratic Senate leadership team in 2014, and she was one of the people he most trusted to keep the Senate caucus on its bearings through the difficult weather ahead. Shortly before Thanksgiving, he summoned Warren to the minority leader's office. When she arrived, the room was littered with art supplies; on an easel was a half-finished portrait of Reid that would be unveiled at his retirement party the following month. Its subject was preoccupied with the future of the party to which he had dedicated decades of his life. Reid told Warren she needed to think seriously about running for president in 2020. "He was worried in November," Warren told me recently. "For me, it was so important to make clear: We will fight back — we will fight back. We're not here to make this normal."

Warren has already announced that she will run for re-election for her Senate seat but has declined in the past to say whether or not she is considering running for president.